Tartans Place Fifth at UAA Indoor Championships

(CHICAGO, Ill.) - The Carnegie Mellon University women's track and field team finished fifth at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Indoor Track and Field Championships on Sunday, March 1 at the University of Chicago.

On Saturday, the distance medley relay of senior Sara Kelly (Madison, Wis./West), freshman Sarah Cook (Pittsburgh, Pa./Hampton), sophomore Ariel Tian (Acton, Mass./Acton Boxborough Regional) and senior Erin Kiekhaefer (Palo Alto, Calif./Palo Alto) finished fourth in a school-record time of 12:25.51. Senior Sasha Spalding (Springhill, Fla./Springstead) also set a new school record, breaking her own record in the 200-meter dash preliminaries. Her time of 26.29 qualified her for the finals where she bettered that time with a fourth-place finish in 26.19.

In the 5,000-meter run on Saturday, junior Sophie Lohmann (Bergisch Gladbach, Germany) placed sixth overall in 18:22.77.

In the field events, Spalding lept to a second-place showing in the long jump with a mark of 5.46 meters while sophomore Grace Yee (San Francisco, Calif./Lick-Wilmerding) finished sixth in the pole vault, clearing 3.00 meters. Sophomore Rebecca Fortner (Navarre, Ohio/Fairless) jumped over the bar set at 1.58 meters to finish fourth in the high jump as Spalding placed sixth in the shot put with a mark of 10.89 meters.

Junior Lauren Maturo (Syosset, N.Y./Syosset) threw the weight throw a career-best 12.82 meters in the event to place seventh.

The mile run saw Kiekhaefer place fifth with a time of 5:03.48.